(Disclaimer: this post references a new UI element from the April 2026 backer/patron update, a plot point from Doki Doki Literature Club, and a mechanic from Life is Strange.)
There's a recurring thought about Leander I've been wanting to share for a while now, but not to be taken seriously, so don't read too deep into it (!) Fans have already discussed his character design, general trivia, symbolism and "red flags" over the years of production by now, but the devs themselves seem to have been building a little something around him, both through their socials and the writing itself. A kind of running meta-joke, beyond his manipulative tendencies and obsession with the MC… So what if Leander, in his own quiet way, knows a little more than he should?
˙✦ The character card (Dec 2022):
When his card first dropped, players spent a lot of time speculating about what his redacted flaw might say. Among the five LIs, Leander is the only one whose entry is hidden. Every other character has theirs visible: Ais "lets his emotions rule him", Mhin "resists change at any cost", and so on. But Leander's is deliberately censored, with this teasing caption from the studio:
"We could've sworn something was written here, but it looks like it was scratched out… What do you think it said? 🔍"
⬩➤ About the framing: the devs wrote it as if the redaction happened to the card rather than by them, like the scratching-out is something that occurred in-world. Maybe it's a simple story spoiler the team wants to protect. Maybe it's just the studio being silly, as we know by now. Or it could be a subtle hint that whatever's wrong with Leander is something he'd rather we didn't see.
˙✦ The matchmaker quiz (Feb 2023):
About two months later, the devs released a quiz to find out which LI would be your match. Most results were playful in tone, describing the kind of player who'd end up with each character: Kuras was for people who "think very deep thoughts and not talk to anybody", Vere was for those who "live dangerously or just constantly make very bad decisions", and Ais's and Mhin's followed in the same register.
But Leander's? It broke from that pattern entirely, pleading with the player not to even think about going back for a different answer:
"You're attractive, funny, nice and perfect… JUST like Leander, which is why the two of you are dating now. No take-backs! Don't you dare take this quiz again to try and get Ais instead. Don't you dare click retake. NO!!"
Which doesn't really read as him being possessive, but more like the quiz itself (or maybe Leander through it?) reaching for us, almost like a Stanley Parable-style narrator who doesn't want you to wander off-script... A rather pointed writing choice, for a quiz result.
˙✦ The first demo prologue and 2.0 version (2023 to 2025):
For longtime players, this was the very early prototype, back when the "Hound" origin still existed (later reworked into the "Exile") and the gang we now know as the "Adderstone" was still called "Bloodhounds". A lot has been refined since, but one thing that didn't really change is how Leander handles your impressions of the other LIs. Whenever you asked him about any of them, his response would shift depending on what you said first. Whichever way you leaned, he pushed the other direction just enough that your read couldn't quite settle.
Fans have been pointing out this exact behavior since 2022, so none of it is a new observation. But it's worth noticing that this pattern has been visible since the earliest prototype, and the writers kept it intact through every build, with last year's version only making it smoother.
And here's where the game structure makes it interesting: by the time you have this conversation with him, you've already picked his route anyway. There's no narrative reason left to keep you uncertain about the other LIs. That choice is locked. Whatever undoes it lives at the player's level, not the character's.
˙✦ The Tumblr post (Nov 25, 2024):
During the original demo's run, the studio also posted this little joke that caught the eye of some fans. A short video clip of Leander standing in the MC's room, arms crossed, staring directly at the camera, with the sky outside looking a little uneasy in a way that's hard to articulate but feels intentional. The caption was simply "Just Leander 🙂" and the studio tagged it with #:) among the usual game tags.
For anyone who's watched a playthrough or played Doki Doki Literature Club, the reference is pretty clear. It's a direct visual nod to Monika, a character whose whole thing is fourth-wall-breaking awareness inside what looks like a normal dating sim. The cryptic smileys feel like the studio winking at fans who'd recognize the staging.
And of all five LIs, that meta joke landed specifically on Leander. Again.
˙✦ The rewind UI (April 2026):
The studio recently introduced a new rewind UI in their April 2026 update for backers and Patreon supporters. I won't include the visual here since it doesn't feel like my place to be the one to put that out there yet. But anyone who's also played or watched Life is Strange will remember the concept immediately, since the devs themselves brought up LiS as an example. The two UIs are designed differently (a small swirl in LiS, more of a gauge bar in Touchstarved), but they share the same core idea: keeping the rewind option visually present as a continuous on-screen element, rather than the small text buttons or mouse-wheel inputs most VNs use alongside their Skip, Auto, and Backlog options.
That's a design choice worth pausing on, since LiS is a franchise built specifically around choice and consequence, where rewinding lets you test small decisions before the big ones become permanent. And in a game where Leander has been coded with fourth-wall-flavored details since 2022, the visual borrowing stands out a little more than it might in another title.
Now to be fair, Red Spring Studio has been clear that they're adding this "as a UX improvement, to make the existing rewind feature less buggy and harder to click by accident", especially with the Switch release down the line. So I'm not claiming they meant it as a thematic nod or foreshadowing something. But for someone who spent hours replaying chapters of Life is Strange years ago, the fact that the devs reached for that specific reference was the small nudge that finally made me want to share this theory.
˙✦ Anyway:
Whether the devs leaned into it intentionally or not, I keep finding myself coming back to this little meta association. It's a different flavor from the usual running jokes (like Mhin being the cast's eternal smol bean, bless them), but it lingers all the same. And it was enough to make me start wondering what his story might really be about, since Leander is the only love interest whose motives for offering the MC a cure have been kept hidden for years now, while the studio continues presenting him as the "heroic mage" with a sinister duality underneath.
Quick aside (and this one stays inside the game itself rather than around it): that specific line in the prologue where Leander tells the MC he knows the others "probably more than some of them realize" also stands out, as well as the ouroboros showing up twice in his design, once as an infinity symbol on his official keychain charm and once stabbed through by a dagger on his earring. Maybe like Monika, he's aware he's inside a romance game, one that loops the way the snake keeps eating its tail. But that's a thread for another potential post.
Again, none of this is a serious theory, and I'm not trying to crack a code. It's more that the flags keep stacking up in a way that's fun to put in chronological order across the game's development. The writers can take Leander in whatever direction makes sense for their story, and most of these patterns probably have simpler in-world explanations.
But if we ever do get a "Just Leander..." moment of our own at some point, well, I'm just saying, the breadcrumbs were there... (^^)⊹ ࣪ ˖
I think I also thought of how all the world is a stage and....[searches up the rest because i forgot]
Yes yes this fits dramaturgy well too. Yes yes as you said information is power. Its more overt in this visual novel but i think it relates too to how we live in whats called the information age iirc. Wars being waged or control exerted largely through control of information. Thats the larger scale of it. And of course the smaller scale in personal social lives. And also that thing about if a tree falls with no one to hear it, does it make a sound kind of thing. Scientifically it's a duh. But its about being seen, perceived, witnessed.
Ok thats all i got for now
Edit: oh and also that thing about recognition of the other (being recognized as an Other? I havent really gone deep into it myself). And how sometimes you lose your sense of self when isolated, which seems to come into clarity when around someone/others. How its like you have to see someone else, different and the same, to grasp who you are. "That part is like me. That part is not like me." It's discerning, discriminating, perceiving. And it can result in division but also connection
While we're in this train of thought I want to emphasize the current surveillance state and the resurgence of censorship. Censorship is so old. A cycle again. Everyone is being watched. What everyone is watching (reading, consuming, understanding, learning, knowledge) is being watched, being controlled. To watch to receive information. To watch to control information. So true so real this horror vn is fucking hitting us right in the guts of today. But also timeless problems
Labubus are blind bags but they're also blind bags with some of the most insane dark patterns stacked on top. The online store for them has a thing where they tell you what you got the second you order it online so that you can immediately try again if you didn't get the thing you wanted.
There's also a shake feature that is designed to encourage you to buy more than one by narrowing down the possibility space on a crate of options so that if you're hunting a specific model you can verify that it's guaranteed to be in one of these three IF you buy all three right now!!!!!
I just thought of this post, which was actually how I learned what Dark Patterns are, because I tried to cancel my Adobe Acrobat subscription, and it took much longer than I anticipated because several times throughout the process it felt like it was intentionally trying to trick me into thinking I'd cancelled my subscription when I actually hadn't yet.
Please read up on Dark Patterns and learn how to recognize them.
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